I'm addicted to your everything.
Your look, your touch,
Your sneer, your smile,
Your love and hate.
I just can't pull myself away.
Your biting words,
Your fighting blows,
Your angry glance.
I'm addicted to all of it.
Someone please help me stop.

I see you,
Not by reflected or absorbed light rays,
But by the way one soul sees another.
I feel you,
Not through touch but emotion,
By the way your heart carreses mine.
I hear you,
You whisper tender things to keep me going,
And you angrily object whenever I fall.
I smell you,
Your scent in my truck, on my clothes,
It clogs my pores and I am an addict.
I taste you,
On my lips when I close my eyes,
And whenever I relive happy memories.
I love you,
And this life we have together,
The way you roll your eyes at me and call me "dork".
You telling me your problems aren't mine, when really they are ours.
I hold you,
In times of sadness, anger, loss.
And I'm glad that you're mine.
There's nobody I would rather have by my side.

Suddenly my hands feel so much more used to holding someone.
It feels so natural when she pulls my arms around her, my hands on her hips.
Gazing into her eyes, her arms around my neck.
That knowing smile on her face.
I can feel myself blinking nervously, and she grins wider.
Now my rifle has competition.
Because with as much as I enjoy pulling the trigger and firing a round downrange,
I enjoy intertwining myself with her even more.

I am a late night thinker,
Who holds a muted light under the covers,
Who scribbles quickly before it flickers out,
Who suffers from a willing lack of sleep.
I do all that I am possibly able,
What I can do for others,
What I must do for my family,
What I want to do for myself.
I do some of my best work at night,
When the moon is full,
When coyotes cackle in the fields,
When owls scold each other in the trees.
I live east of the giant mountains,
Where the sun rises over them each day,
Where I fight against those around me,
Where I call my one and only home.
But still I have so many questions.
Why am I here?
Why am I writing this?
And why, in the world, do people read it?

I am a lit flame,
Devouring all those I am exposed to.
It is not my wish.
It is my nature.
My instinct.
This eternal hunger,
Is like an ache.
One that will never go away.
Until I can find the one person,
Who can balance out my heat.
And counteract the flames.
I'm sorry to those I have burned,
And to those who have frozen me.
To those who bear witness,
And to those unwilling bystanders,
To the hungry blaze.